The Israeli military fired at a group of Gazans launching flaming balloons into southern Israel on Tuesday, as Hamas reportedly prepared for a possible military confrontation should ceasefire talks fail.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed in a statement that an aircraft fired at the group in the northern Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinians were injured in the strike, which took place near the border fence with Israel east of Gaza City, the Hamas-linked Palestinian Information Center reported.
Incendiary balloons and flaming kites launched by Gazans have wreaked havoc in the Israeli communities surrounding Gaza since April, sparking fires that have scorched thousands of acres of farmlands and countryside.
The airstrike occurred amid reports that Israel and Hamas could be nearing a truce that would see a halt in the cross-border attacks and the reopening of Gaza’s sole cargo terminal with Israel.
Highlighting skepticism over a long-term ceasefire, Hamas’s political leadership met on Monday with top officials in its military to discuss its preparedness for battle with Israel, according to a report in Israeli news site Ynet.
The meeting came a day after Israeli political and military brass huddled for several hours, but did not release any concrete decisions. Following the meeting, a statement from the cabinet said “the IDF is prepared for any scenario.” It gave no indication if any decision on the truce had been made.
Palestinian sources told Ynet that the Hamas meeting took place in response to the Israeli statement and that Hamas leaders warned they could inflict casualties that the Israeli public and government would not be able to tolerate.
A senior Hamas source in Gaza said he was unaware of the meeting.
Hamas, a terror group that officially seeks Israel’s destruction, is the de facto ruler of the Strip.
Earlier Monday, the London-based, Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, reported that the first stage of the potential truce would see Israel fully reopen the Kerem Shalom goods crossing and increase the fishing zone off the Gaza coast. It added that in return, Hamas official said the Strip’s rulers would commit to halting all attacks against Israel.
The second phase of the deal would include Hamas-Israel talks for a prisoner exchange agreement, and the implementation of long-proposed humanitarian projects in Gaza, the report said.
A top cabinet minister on Monday played down the significance of indirect truce talks with the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers, suggesting any ceasefire deal would be limited in scope.
Housing Minister Yoav Gallant, a member of the security cabinet, said what was at issue was a ceasefire, not a full-scale agreement.
His assessment appeared to fall short of what officials from the terrorist group have described as Egyptian efforts to broker a comprehensive agreement, including a significant easing of an 11-year-old border blockade and UN-led reconstruction of Gaza.
“There is no process toward an agreement,” he told Army Radio, a day after he attended a high-level security cabinet that discussed Gaza proposals for several hours.
Tensions have escalated since late March when Hamas launched what would become regular mass protests along Israel’s perimeter fence with Gaza.
For the past four months, there have been near-weekly, violent protests along the Israel-Gaza border organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers, leading to the most serious escalation of tensions between the two sides since the 2014 war.
The deadly clashes have seen Israeli security forces facing gunfire, grenades, Molotov cocktails, and efforts — sometimes successful — to damage or cross the border fence.
At least 160 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the “March of Return” protests began, the Hamas ministry says. Hamas has acknowledged that dozens of those killed were its members.
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